Monomorphemic Words Research Articles

The morpheme-to-stress principle in Tohono Oodham

In this paper, I describe and analyze a novel pattern of secondary stress in Tohono O'odham. Tohono O'odham (formerly known as Papago) assigns primary stress to the first syllable in content words (Hale 1959; Saxton 1963; Hill and Zepeda 1992). Fieldwork by the author on Tohono O'odham shows that a word-final secondary stress is disallowed in monomorphemic words but is allowed in polymorphemic words. This descriptive generalization holds regardless of the morphological composition or the derivational history of the word. This appears to be a novel stress pattern in the world's languages; no similar pattern appears in either Halle and Vergnaud (1987) or Hayes (1995), two important typological works on metrical systems. Optimality theory (McCarthy and Prince 1993; Prince and Smolensky 1993) ranks constraints in a single hierarchy that evaluates both derived and underived words without a serial derivation. O'odham secondary stress is accounted for in this way by proposing the morpheme-to-stress principle, a constraint requiring that each morpheme be stressed. This is true, as long as rhythmic considerations against clashes and lapses are respected. The morpheme-to-stress principle provides an optimality-theoretic account of this interesting metrical asymmetry between derived and underived words in Tohono O'odham and offers an account of other types of morphological stress systems.

Decomposition: To What Extent? The Case of Turkish

It has been proposed that in agglutinative languages, lexical access of morphologically complex words must involve decomposition rather than full listing (Frauenfelder & Schreuder, 1992; Hankamer, 1989). We tested this proposal in Turkish using a simple lexical decision task. Results show that multimorphemic words that consist of frequent affixes are processed as fast as monomorphemic words. This finding suggests that in languages with rich morphology, not all multimorphemic words are accessed in a decomposed form. To the extent that morphemes are in frequent use, they may induce whole-word rather than decompositional lexical access.

THE INTERPLAY OF WORD FORMATION TYPE, AFFIXAL HOMONYMY, AND PRODUCTIVITY IN LEXICAL PROCESSING : EVIDENCE FROM A MORPHOLOGICALLY RICH LANGUAGE

This study addresses the role of three factors in morphological processing of visually presented words in Finnish: word formation type (inflection versus derivation), productivity, and affixal homonymy. Three visual lexical decision experiments show that complex words can be processed slower, equally fast, or even faster than comparable monomorphemic word forms. We will argue that this diverse pattern of results reflects the ways different complex words are stored and processed. Moreover, it indicates that the balance of storage and computation crucially depends on the interplay of the three above-mentioned factors. Surprisingly, our results converge in a manner consistent with data obtained from a typologically very different language, namely Dutch.

Ojitlan Chinantec Phonology and Morphology

This paper provides a preliminary sketch of Ojitlan Chinantec phonology and parts of its verbal morphology. Most Chinantec monomorphemic words are monosyllabic, and inflected words are often monosyllabic as well. There are numerous potential contrasts within the syllable: a large number of consonants, oral and nasal vowels, tone, and stress. Issues in the analysis of the consonants, tone, and stress system are considered, and compared to previous analyses of other Chinantec dialects. A brief description of verbal inflection is given, noting segmental, prosodic, and affixal alternations. Ojitlan Chinantec is largely undocumented and probably moribund, and so more work is urgently needed.

Words and Morphemes as Units for Lexical Access

The representation of morphological information in memory was investigated in three experiments using French monomorphemic words that can stand as the base of derivationally related words (e.g., the word PLUME forms the base of the words PLUMER, PLUMAGE, PLUMIER, .). The results of Experiment 1 yielded no effect of the Cumulative Frequency of all forms sharing the base morpheme. Experiments 2a and 2b showed an effect of Morphemic Frequency (the frequency of only the derived forms), but only when Word Frequency was less frequent than Morphemic Frequency. In Experiment 3, an effect of Word Frequency was observed only when Word Frequency was more frequent than Morphemic Frequency. The results are explained in terms of independent representations for the free word form and the form used as the base of the other members of the morphological family.

The special role of rimes in the description, use, and acquisition of English orthography.

The links between spellings and sounds in a large set of English words with consonant-vowel-consonant phonological structure were examined. orthographic rimes, or units consisting of a vowel grapheme and a final consonant grapheme, had more stable pronunciations than either individual vowels or initial consonant-plus-vowel units. In 2 large-scale studies of word pronunciation, the consistency of pronunciation of the orthographic rime accounted for variance in latencies and errors beyond that contributed by the consistency of pronunciation of the individual graphemes and by other factors. In 3 experiments, as well, children and adults made more errors on words with less consistently pronounced orthographic rimes than on words with more consistently pronounced orthographic rimes. Relations between spellings and sounds in the simple monomorphemic words of English are more predictable when the level of onsets and rimes is taken into account than when only graphemes and phonemes are considered.

The role of semantic transparency in the processing and representation of Dutch compounds

Abstract The processing and representation of Dutch compound words was investigated as a function of their semantic transparency. The first experiment, with immediate partial repetition of the constituents of the compounds, provided clear evidence for the sensitivity of the lexical processing system to morphological complexity, independent of semantic transparency. This was confirmed in a second experiment, with semantic priming of the meaning of the constituents. Unlike compounds that are semantically fully or partially transparent, completely opaque compounds did not prime the associates of their constituents. The results for completely opaque compounds were the same as for monomorphemic words that accidentally contain two existing morphemes of the language. It is concluded that completely opaque compounds are not connected with their constituents at the level of semantic representations.

Morphology and meaning in the English mental lexicon.

The authors investigated the lexical entry for morphologically complex words in English. Six experiments, using a cross-modal repetition priming task, asked whether the lexical entry for derivationally suffixed and prefixed words is morphologically structured and how this relates to the semantic and phonological transparency of the surface relationship between stem and affix. There was clear evidence for morphological decomposition of semantically transparent forms. This was independent of phonological transparency, suggesting that morphemic representations are phonologically abstract. Semantically opaque forms, in contrast, behave like monomorphemic words. Overall, suffixed and prefixed derived words and their stems prime each other through shared morphemes in the lexical entry, except for pairs of suffixed forms, which show a cohort-based interference effect

Contextual conditioning in variable lexical phonology

ABSTRACTThe variable lexical phonology proposed in Guy (1991) predicts an exponential relationship among rates of retention in word classes of different derivational histories. A class of words that satisfies the structural description of a variable rule at an early lexical level of derivation will undergo multiple operations of the rule and, therefore, exponentially reduced rates of retention, compared to a class of forms that only satisfies the structural description of the rule at the end of the derivation and thus is subject to its operation only once. For the case of English -t,d deletion, it is postulated that monomorphemic words (e.g., mist) are exposed to the deletion rule three times in a derivation, whereas semiweak past tense forms (e.g., left) are exposed twice, and regular past tense forms (e.g., missed) undergo the rule but once.The present article explores the consequences of this model for other variable constraints on a rule, such as the preceding and following segment constraints on -t,d deletion. Word-internal constraints, because they are present throughout the derivation, are shown to have quantitatively different patterns than external constraints, as the latter affect the rule only in its final, post-lexical operation. Four specific quantitative predictions are derived from the model to elucidate this distinction between internal and external constraints, and empirical data are presented to confirm the predictions.

Explanation in variable phonology: An exponential model of morphological constraints

ABSTRACTVariationist treatments of phonological processes typically provide precise quantitative accounts of the effects of conditioning environmental factors on the occurrence of the process, and these effects have been shown to be robust for several well-studied processes. But comparable precision in theoretical explanation is usually elusive, at the current state of the discipline. That is, the analyst is usually unable to say why the parameters should have the particular values that they do, although one can often explain relative ordering of environments. This article attempts to give a precise explanation — in the form of a quantitative theoretical prediction — of one robust quantitative observation about English phonology. The reduction of final consonant clusters (often called -t,d deletion) is well-known to be conditioned by the morphological structure of a target word. Deletion applies more in monomorphemic words (e.g., mist) than in inflected words (e.g., missed). In the theory of lexical phonology, these classes of words are differentiated by derivational history, acquiring their final clusters at different levels of the morphology. The theory further postulates that rules may apply at more than one level of the derivation. If -t,d deletion is treated as a variable rule with a fixed rate of application (p0) in a phonology with this architecture, then higher rates of application in underived forms (where the final cluster is present underlyingly and throughout the derivation) are a consequence of multiple exposures to the deletion rule, whereas inflected forms (which only meet the structural description of the rule late in the derivation) have fewer exposures and lower cumulative deletion. This further allows a precise quantitative prediction concerning surface deletion rates in the different morphological categories. They should be related as an exponential function of p0, depending on the number of exposures to the rule. The prediction is empirically verified in a study of -t,d deletion in seven English speakers.

On access representation in visual word recognition: The temporal separation technique

This paper examines the evidence for an access representation based on the initial part of the word. A temporal separation technique, which presents test words in two parts, was used, and varied as to whether the first part included two, three, or four initial letters of a word. In contrast with previous studies, word-frequency effects were used to assess whether access had occurred from that initial part. Experiment 1 (in English) tested the validity of the temporal separation technique, and showed that it does impose an input segmentation. Experiments 2 (in English) and 3 (in Spanish) examined whether access to a monomorphemic word is achieved, using word frequency as a diagnostic of access. The implications of the findings for the notion of a partial input representation for access are discussed.

More on words, hemifields, and hemispheres: A reply to Schwartz and Kirsner

This paper critically examines the theoretical and empirical basis for two claims made by Schwartz and Kirsner (1986, Brain and Cognition, 5, 354–361): (1) that acuity gradients can account for most visual field effects/interactions reported for horizontally presented words, and (2) that acuity gradients should be considered the “default” explanation for such findings. It is argued here that the acuity gradient account of higher order laterality effects is based on a questionable theory of lexical access, has no empirical support, and cannot explain, even in principle, many lateralization results. It is concluded that acuity gradients make little or no contribution to laterality effects when the stimuli consist of short monomorphemic words, and that theoretical explanations for such effects ought not be accepted by default.

Repetition priming is not purely episodic in origin.

The sufficiency of similarity among surface attributes of prime-target pairs to account for the pattern of facilitation obtained in the repetition priming paradigm was evaluated. In Experiment 1, morphological primes were singular, inflected case forms of Serbo-Croatian words and visual similarity of prime and target was manipulated by alternating the two alphabets in which the Serbo-Croatian language is written. Results indicated that the magnitude of facilitation in the alphabetically alternating condition was not reduced relative to the nonalternating condition (RUPI-RUPI vs. RUPI-RUPI) which suggested that visual similarity is not a necessary condition for facilitation in the present task. In Experiment 2, related pairs included (a) base forms with diminutives, a class of highly productive and semantically predictable derivations marked in Serbo-Croatian by suffixes and (b) base words with morphologically unrelated monomorphemic words whose orthographic pattern encompassed the target in initial position and a sequence of letters in final position that elsewhere functions as a diminutive suffix. No facilitation of word targets by orthographically similar but morphologically unrelated primes was observed although there was a tendency toward facilitation among structurally similar pseudowords. Collectively, the experiments suggested that structural similarity of prime and target is not a sufficient condition for facilitation in the repetition priming paradigm.

Lexical access via an orthographic code? The Basic Orthographic Syllabic Structure (BOSS) reconsidered

Three lexical decision experiments tested the claim by M. Taft (Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 1979, 18, 21–39) that lexical access is based on a word's Basic Orthographic Syllabic Structure (BOSS). Experiment 1 failed to replicate Taft's finding that lexical decisions were faster to monomorphemic words split at their BOSS boundary than those split at their Vocalic Center Group (VCG) boundary. In Experiments 2 and 3, preview of a word's BOSS for monomorphemic words produced no faster lexical decision than preview of the initial VCG. There was therefore no evidence that the BOSS is a word's unique lexical access entry. The results of Experiment 3, which employed polymorphemic words, suggested that morphemic units are more likely to be access codes than purely orthographic units.

Traitement perceptif des mots affixés : mise en évidence d'un contrôle cognitif

Summary : Depth of processing and lexical acces of polymorphemic words. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the reader's perceptive activity with mono and polymorphemic words. In the first experiment it is found that the perceptive activity at the end of monomorphemic words is in relation with the task (reading or correction task). In the second experiment, it is found that, in the reading task, the depth of processing is negatively correlated with the perceptive activity in the end of monomorphemic words. This effect is not observed with suffixed words. It is also found in the third experiment that if suffixes are more processed ihan the end of monomorphemic words, it is because of structural reasons (because subject assigns linguistic status to roots) and not because it is easy to predict suffixes. A model of reading is discussed in the light of these results. Key-words : Lexical access, polymorphemic words, depth of processing.

Evidence for a Synthetic Trend in Totonacan

For some time there has existed among some philosophers of language an assumption that linguistic development through time shows a universal trend from synthesis to analysis, from multimorphemic to monomorphemic words. Jespersen's1 theory of progress in language embodies such an assumption. Such hypotheses are based on preconceptions as to inferior and superior types of linguistic structures, with holophrasis at the inferior 'primitive' end of the continuum, and with languages which split such holophrases into monomorphemic words at the superior, 'civilized' end. Implicit likewise is the thesis that the superior type appeared concomitantly with development of high cultures. In contradistinction to this assumed trend of linguistic development, some evidence has been adduced for the opposite process, that of building up more complex words from earlier phrases, of a shift from analysis to synthesis. Swadesh2 made such a claim for Nootka in comparison with other related languages, and the isolated instances from Romance3 languages are well known. In my comparison of Totonacan4 forms with Mayan5 and with Zoquean (within Macro-Mayan,' a postulated genetic unit within a still largely hypothetical Macro-Penutian), I have noted that the Totonacan forms tend to be more complex than equivalent forms in the other languages. The following examples may serve as illustrations:8